New Advances in Drug Discovery

Organizer(s): James A. Wells and Robert F.G. Booth

Sponsored by ICOS Corporation

Summary of Meeting:

The Keystone Meeting on New Advances in Drug Discovery is held every other year and is intended to capture the most exciting developments in Industry and Academia related to Drug Discovery. The meeting has traditionally been one of the most dynamic Keystone conferences because of the cross-section of scientists that are assembled to discuss key advances in biopharmaceutical sciences. There are now many opportunities to enhance drug discovery through the utilization of data from the Human Genome Project and through new tools designed to exploit the information. In addition, a variety of novel technologies are emerging which promise to enhance the productivity of drug discovery. All of this is fueled by the need to improve the efficiency of drug discovery. It is the objective of this meeting to focus on the most exciting new technologies, trends and potential success stories in novel areas of drug discovery. Rather than providing broad reviews of general fields or company overviews, the meeting is intended to provide new scientific achievements in the area of biomedical and pharmaceutical research. The meeting will include new breakthroughs in the following areas: New approaches to the discovery of small molecules The impact of genomics and proteomics to drug discovery Emerging target classes New drug candidates In the first part of the meeting the focus will be on the ways in which structural, computational and combinatorial approaches have improved our ability to design small molecules, both in terms of speed and quality. The session on genomics will provide information on the latest advances in these fields and their impact on our understanding of the biology emerging from the human genome project. The ability of these technologies to aid in the identification of attractive new drug targets will be assessed. The majority of small molecule drugs reaching the market have focused on a very limited set of target classes (GPCRs, proteases etc). The third session will focus on newly emerging target classes and the progress that is being made to bring molecules from these classes through to the clinic. The final session will assess the progress that is being made on some of the most exciting targets being focused on within drug discovery. The lessons which can be learned from the hard won experience of this work will be reviewed. In summary, the most exciting current research in emerging fields of drug discovery will be covered during the course of the meeting.

Discounted Abstract Deadline: September 16 2002

Discounted Registration Deadline: November 7 2002

We gratefully acknowledge additional support for this conference from:

Cell Signaling Technology, Inc.

We gratefully acknowledge the generous grant for this conference provided by:

National Cancer Institute (NCI)
Grant No. 1 R13 CA098965-01

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Special thanks to the following for their support of Keystone Symposia initiatives to increase participation at this meeting by scientists from underrepresented backgrounds:

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